HR needs a Box of Kisses

Here is a story. Author unknown.

‘A man punished his 3-year-old daughter for wasting a roll of gold wrapping paper. Money was tight and he became infuriated when the child tried to decorate a box to put under the Christmas tree.

Nevertheless, the little girl brought the gift to her father the next morning and said, "This is for you, Daddy." He was embarrassed by his earlier overreaction, but his anger flared again when he found the box was empty.

He yelled at her, "Don't you know that when you give someone a present, there's supposed to be something inside it?"

The little girl looked up at him with tears in her eyes and said, "Oh, Daddy, it is not empty. I blew kisses into the box. All for you, Daddy."

The father was crushed. He put his arms around his little girl, and he begged for her forgiveness.

It is told that the man kept that gold box by his bed for years and whenever he was discouraged, he would take out an imaginary kiss and remember the love of the child who had put it there.’

We in HR, most of time, are struggling to fill up the box with full of rationality, procedural details and the top management saying when it comes to how to get things done better in our organization. Looking back my days in HR, yes indeed, my preparations were full of PPT slides with arguments and explanations. Business acumen, people analytics and behavioral science are important competencies in HR to quickly win acceptance in our organization. No doubt on that. I am working for people analytics now.

How often have we listened to a voice from our heart when we deliver valuable things to our colleagues even if we call ourselves as an employee champion? Our communication materials that we made with our sweat and effort for day and night are often thrown to the corner of desks or cabinets after our communication events are over. None of them would be kept by individual bed for years to take out our message whenever our associates are discouraged.

It might be the time now to think about a Box of Kisses which contain enough space with an imaginary kisses instead of nitty-gritty details. People might see our empty box as our negligence at the first moment but they soon see in our box fully filled message of our authenticity and pray for their success.